Hello Everyone

I've been following this forum over the last few months. I built my pond last fall. Here are the details
8x10x1.5 - 3.0
800 gallon
AquaSurge 2000 pump (1,850 gallons per hour)
Skimmer
BioFalls with filter
I had 17 gold fish before early this morning. This included 4 10" Goldie's and the remainder are feeders that have been growing like weeds this spring.
I woke up this morning to a large blue heron having breakfast on 2 of the large Goldie's. It came back later in the day and had a third one. I've included pictures of my pond after I used fishing line to crisscross over the pond and included a line above the skimmer which is where the heron jumped into the pond. Will this keep it out or do I need to net the pond?

Thanks for any feedback. This forum has been a great learning tool to help me with my water troubles (they don't exist anymore, thanks to all the great information on this forum).

Advertisements

Hello and welcome, Roger! So sorry to hear about your GBH visitor! Lots of people have lots of different remedies for keeping them away. Some work and some don't. And because every pond is different, it's hard to say what will work for your situation. One of our members, @addy1, has a large net draped over her pond (but it sounds worse than it is -- she can give the particulars). All I know for sure is that once the GBH finds your fish, they return and the battle is on. You're just going to have to wait and see if the fishing line works.

Advertisements

Sorry to hear about the fish loss. From what I have read on this forum, I don't think the fishing line is going to keep the heron at bay. It seems the "weapon of choice" is a net like @addy1 and others use. One place that sells them is http://www.pond-netting.com/ but I'm sure members can suggest sources with good prices.

Your pond is beautiful. I think you will need a net. One summer my net didn't go up far enough up the water fall and that sneaky heron was able to get into the water fall and duck under the net to get to the fish. Thank goodness I only lost one fish before I realized it.

Thanks for all the feedback. Hello MMathis, I live just outside of Denver along open space and a golf course (currently under a major renovation). I woke up to the answer about my fishing line experiment and the GBR was once again in the pond. No breakfast for him today, it appears that the deep end with all the hyacinths are protecting them right now. I'm looking into finding a net local here in Denver today. We have a Nest camera and see when he arrives and this morning he stalked for 30 minutes but left empty when I woke up and scared him away.

sorry to hear and welcome to the forum and happy you decided to share your successful pond build .Great job and sure glad so far only saw herons fly over but I am not on the stop off route .They are headed for the dan river

Thanks for all the feedback. Hello MMathis, I live just outside of Denver along open space and a golf course (currently under a major renovation). I woke up to the answer about my fishing line experiment and the GBR was once again in the pond. No breakfast for him today, it appears that the deep end with all the hyacinths are protecting them right now. I'm looking into finding a net local here in Denver today. We have a Nest camera and see when he arrives and this morning he stalked for 30 minutes but left empty when I woke up and scared him away.

Click to expand...

Darn GBH! Whenever you do get a net, one precaution is to have it elevated above the pond. If it's in too close to the pond's surface, the GBH can still spear fish through the holes. And even with smaler holes, he might not be able to remove the fish, but can still harm them. Also, and @addy1 can give the best advice, because other wildlife might visit your pond [birds, frogs, etc.] you'll want to leave room around the perimeter so they can escape if/when they get under the netting.

A high net draped down on all sides w/no way for them to sneak under is the only thing I have found to work. I have mine attached at the bottom to a short wire fence which keeps out the raccoons,cats etc. also.

Nice pond. I've been using a water sprayer. I used a net for several weeks after the heron visited my pond and didn't like having it up. Hopefully the sprayer works. It's triggered by a motion detector. So far no more missing fish, but I don't know if it's because the sprayer works or if the heron just hasn't come by again.

Thanks for all the great comments. I installed a net over the pond last Saturday and the heron showed up Sunday morning. I watched the video as he got on top of the net looked around for 5 minutes and flew off and hasn't been back since. The netting is about a penny size wide so that probably kept him from getting through to the fish. Hopefully this will take care of him/her moving forward.

Over the weekend, I played at a golf course on the Eastern Shore of Maryland called Blue Heron. It has water features on every hole, and a namesake was present at at least six of them (plus some very cool, large diving hawks of a sort I never saw before). Man, I've never felt so ambivalent about a creature as I did those herons. They really are beautiful birds, but anything that eats your pets loses cool points in my book.

Welcome to Garden Pond Forums!

Hello and welcome to Garden Pond Forums, the perfect place to get friendly advice on your garden pond and outdoor fish.

Registering is free and only takes a few seconds. We've got plenty of expert members ready to help you out with fish and pond related questions and we always give a warm welcome to any new members. See you on the forums!
Ask a Question